A hiring pipeline that works without a mouse
Drag-and-drop Kanban boards are everywhere in hiring software, and almost none of them have a real keyboard equivalent. That's not an edge case — it's a compliance and usability problem hiding in plain sight.
Most pipeline boards in hiring software are built the same way: candidates as cards, stages as columns, and dragging a card from one column to the next is the only way to move someone forward. It looks clean in a demo. It's also, on its own, inaccessible to anyone who can't use a mouse precisely — including some candidates' future coworkers, if your own hiring team includes someone using a screen reader or keyboard navigation.
Why drag-and-drop alone fails WCAG
Drag-and-drop interactions typically require precise pointer control and provide no equivalent for assistive technology. WCAG 2.2 doesn't ban drag-and-drop, but it does require a keyboard-operable alternative for any drag interaction — and in practice, most Kanban-style ATS boards don't ship one.
The usual workaround teams reach for is a separate "list view" that's maintained as an afterthought, with fewer features than the board. That technically satisfies an audit; it doesn't actually give someone the same tool everyone else is using.
What a real equivalent looks like
In YoHe's pipeline, every card that can be dragged between stages also has a stage-select control — a standard, keyboard-operable dropdown that does the exact same move. It's not a stripped-down fallback view; it's the same board, with a second way to do the same action.
- Tab to a candidate card, open its stage selector, and move it with the keyboard — no pointer required.
- Screen readers announce the same stage change a mouse-driven drag would trigger.
- The same audit log entry gets written either way, because it's the same underlying action.
This isn't a checkbox for a compliance audit. A hiring team that includes someone who can't use a mouse precisely shouldn't be handed a worse tool than everyone else on the team.